Successful Investors Aren’t All That Hungry for United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI)

Because United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI) has experienced bearish sentiment from hedge fund managers, we can see that there lies a certain “tier” of hedge funds who sold off their positions entirely last quarter. It’s worth mentioning that Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group dropped the largest stake of all the hedgies followed by Insider Monkey, comprising close to $10.1 million in call options (while retaining its long position). Guy Shahar’s fund, DSAM Partners, also cut its stock, about $3.1 million worth. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest stayed the same (this is a bearish signal in our experience).

Let’s go over hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI). We will take a look at The Medicines Company (NASDAQ:MDCO), SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY), Owens & Minor, Inc. (NYSE:OMI), and Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT). This group of stocks’ market valuations are similar to UNFI’s market valuation.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 17.25 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $208 million. That figure was $163 million in UNFI’s case. The Medicines Company (NASDAQ:MDCO) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Fulton Financial Corp (NASDAQ:FULT) is the least popular one with only 10 bullish hedge fund positions. United Natural Foods, Inc. (NASDAQ:UNFI) is not the most popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still above average. This is a slightly positive signal but we’d rather spend our time researching stocks that hedge funds are piling on. In this regard MDCO might be a better candidate to consider a long position in.

Disclosure: None